


something is in the distance, blazing

by rememberhow



Series: the way home [1]
Category: Carmen Sandiego (Cartoon 2019)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Codependency, Gen, Mental Instability, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Character Tags to be Added - Freeform, Post-Season/Series 04, as in carmen does not get off brainwashing scot free, but i do change some stuff w/in the time skips, i. i am going to be mean to the characters, underground fighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29852181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rememberhow/pseuds/rememberhow
Summary: after the separation of team red, carmen throws herself into the underground fight scene of new york, trying her best to forget. an ex-VILE operative showing up one day is a sudden wrench in her plans.
Relationships: Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep & Everyone, Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep & Tigress | Sheena, Player & Carmen Sandiego | Black Sheep
Series: the way home [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194734
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16





	something is in the distance, blazing

They call her a number of things when she first arrives, gym bag slung over her shoulder and face too unmarred to belong, but never the name she’s sick of hearing. 

_Adorable_. The bouncer at the door looks down at her with nothing more than contempt, arms crossed over his broad chest. They’ve been getting too many of them recently, tiny scrappy high schoolers who saw one or two boxing documentaries and decided their summer karate camp could carry them far enough in the pit. Her eyes don’t shine hungry like theirs, he’ll give her that, but he still isn’t going to budge for her. She returns his glare with equal irritation. Anything could set her on fire these days. 

_Bitch_. He changes his mind once she knocks both his legs out from under him, crushing his arms behind his back, asking once more whether he’d like to let her in. She allows him to climb to his feet and he speaks gruff into his earpiece— _You lookin’ to change things up tonight?_ —before he grins down at her, all teeth and no warmth, and lets her through the doors. 

_Damn, she’s a scrapper!_ The crowd clings to the fence in curious anticipation the first time she gets knocked down, watching as she staggers back to her feet. She’s deaf to the clanging, the shouting. She drags the back of her hand over her mouth and launches herself forward again. 

Under the gray lights, she is allowed to be dirty, ugly, careless. Here in the smoke-veiled, blood-stink ring, between the stinging slam of sweaty flesh on flesh—she can fail and fall and give in when there is no red coat to live up to. No big, big name. 

And it’s the anonymity that, if only for a few hours, allows her to settle into her skin in a way she can never manage during the day. But there is pain, too, and with it comes a satiating sort of isolation: she’s on the cold ground, someone’s punching the consciousness out of her, and this time, absolutely no one in the world is coming to save her. 

And maybe that’s even better. 

“Seems like we have a new face,” the ref says that first night, at the end of her last round. He turns to her, unfazed by her ragged breath, the wild look in her eyes. “You got a name?” 

It takes her a second to understand what he’s asking, and when she does it strikes her that this isn’t an unfamiliar moment. There is a comforting voice in her ear, the sea rocking below, the whole wide world _waiting_ for her. _Carmen Sandiego_ rests on the tip of her tongue. No, no, she’s got it all wrong—it’s impatient grumbling, her legs threatening to give out beneath her, the crowd clamoring all around the fences. All eyes on her, wondering who she could be, but she’s just looking down at her hands, tasting iron and salt between her teeth. 

Better to shut it all down, she thinks, seize this while they were still oblivious, because doesn’t she know what it’s like for something to grow so larger than life she couldn’t begin to reel it in if she tried. 

Her gaze slowly rises to meet the crowd’s, watching her behind the chain link. 

She doesn’t respond to the question. That doesn’t mean it goes unanswered. 

Carmen walks out of the ring and goes home. 

—

When she's holed up in her apartment, which ends up being most of the time, she watches the news. Carmen Sandiego is sighted in Macau and São Paulo and Seoul within the span of thirty-six hours, none of them quite as stealthy as she was, but she has no doubt they’ll get the hang of things soon. Even with their big coats and hats, she would recognize Sonia’s daring leaps and Xifeng’s acrobatic precision from anywhere. 

Something in her chest thumps and pulls when she watches the videos. There they are dressed in all red, pulling disappearing acts and jumping from rooftops. She smothers the feeling before she can identify it. 

—

They don’t take to her very well. Carmen moves in all the ways a street fighter shouldn’t, nimble and graceful in the most aggravating way possible, yet the minute she’s held down the match ends too soon. Her opponents learn that after a game of cat and mouse around the ring all they need to do is pin her to claim quick victory; she herself realizes that she really needs to work on landing blows if she wants to go home without feeling she’s about to throw up and pass out on the street. She _did_ come here for a fight, but she can’t help that she’s used to evasion—and sorely out of practice. Guiltily, Carmen looks inside herself and tries to find that missing piece, that desire to inflict harm instead of run away from it. 

She hardly wins one in ten matches. But the next week she’ll be back with yesterday’s bruises purpling over her cheek and old blood under her nails. She’ll jump into the ring with the same, untired fervor. She’ll fight until every limb and muscle feels torn and shredded and beaten to pulp. 

It was never about winning, really, because losing feels like letting go rather than giving up. (Besides, Carmen knows what winning is like—or supposed to be like—and it never exactly lived up to expectation.) Something else, she thinks, knows. She steps into the ring and the constant, frenetic tightness in her chest is finally lifted. The familiar dusty light falls on her face. It swallows her. It pumps the oxygen right back into her lungs. 

They close the fences behind her, but it never feels like a cage. 

—

So every Thursday Carmen shrugs her hoodie on and leaves the apartment at nine, catches the subway that takes her to the outskirts of the city, gym bag thumping against her bouncing leg. She finds the peeling-paint door on the side of some nondescript building, swings it open, and ducks inside. She throws her hood back and breathes it all in. 

_There she is_ , the big guy at the door grins and claps her shoulder, and some nights Carmen even smiles back. 

Usually there are two people in the ring already going at each other. Carmen won’t pay them any mind; she’s never come here to watch. She heads straight for the locker room and starts the half-assed job of wrapping her hands. By the time the referee declares a winner, she’s ready to jump into the ring. 

“ _You ready for this, Red?_ ” The voice in her ear is tense, but then Player always seems on-edge these days. 

He’s talking about how this night will be different from others, or so he thinks. Carmen doesn’t understand the concern, really—“A nameless rookie from the Bronx testing out Manhattan waters? Somehow I doubt they’ll get very far.” 

“ _A_ rising _rookie. Like you, once upon a time_.” 

Carmen huffs. “Not the first time they’ve played up competition. Draws out the crowds, you know.” And the one tonight looks hellish. She peers out the door and there are too many bodies melded together for her to begin counting. It’s the only part of this that makes her uneasy, having so many people looking at her—the thought that in time these strangers, too, will expect something from her. She’s gotten good, of course she has, and when the bets rise too high and men in suits come up to her afterwards, smiling at her bruises like they’re gold stars, she knows it’s time to leave that particular club behind. She makes a mental note to ask Player to look for a new place once she’s done tonight. 

“Hey, I gotta go.” 

Wishing her luck never feels right. Neither does telling her to stay safe when he can easily venture a guess why she keeps coming back here in the first place. “ _Yeah, I know_ ,” is what he settles on, “ _talk to me after_.” Carmen unscrews her studs and slips them into her bag. 

It’s true that tonight _shouldn’t_ be any different, but Carmen steps into the ring and immediately catches herself sizing up her opponent—something she never bothers with, because even if they were more than twice her size she would take them on all the same. But her gaze lingers too long over this woman in plainclothes for it to mean nothing, and Carmen begins to realize there's something so unnervingly _familiar_ about her build. She’s taller than her but no bigger; her shoulders are held high but her stance is lowered, as if she’s trying to say at any given moment she could… pounce. 

Carmen’s eyes finally settle on her face—or, rather, the fucking idiotic ski mask pulled over it. She would laugh if her patience weren’t already stretched thin. “This isn’t a _lucha libre_ ,” she grits, throwing an irritated glance at the referee. 

“Choking hazard,” he says to the woman. “Either the mask comes off or you’re out.” 

“Very well,” her opponent drawls. Instantly every alarm in Carmen’s body _screams_ at her to get _out_. Slender fingers come up to lift the mask off inch by inch and she can’t _move_ , _predator predator predator run run run_ —until shoulder-length white hair is freed and icy blue eyes look right into hers. 

The room widens and then shrinks. Cold hands reach in and pull the breath from her lungs. Everything closes in on a single point— 

— _her_. 

_This is a trap. You’ve done it. They found you. They_ found _you._

“ _Carmen Sandiego_ ,” Tigress says, and the name drips with grandeur as artificial as sweet candy. When she laughs the sound is rough and chipped, wrong for a feline creature. “This might be your worst getup yet. I mean,” she waves a hand around, looking the other woman up and down, “do you always have to be so _extra_?” 

“We fight with our fists here, lady, not our words,” the referee interjects. 

“Right.” Her mouth, still painted in that same merlot, curls up slowly. She cracks her neck from one side to the other. “Well, let’s do this thing. You’re not going to run, are you?” 

_So what_ , Carmen thinks, _were you faking bravery this entire time, thinking you liked being alone?_

Tigress begins circling her around the ring and Carmen has the presence of mind to mirror her, leveling her gaze on the other woman. _Get a_ hold _of yourself_. If Tigress really is here to take her down, she wouldn’t have chosen to do it here, unmasked, in front of dozens of strangers. Which brings her to the question… 

The familiar motions bring Carmen back to this moment, and she tenses her jaw and finally finds her voice. “What are you doing here, Tigress? VILE can’t afford goons anymore?” 

She thinks she catches the slightest hint of a flinch—before Tigress covers any trace of it with a low snarl. Carmen doesn’t know which name-drop causes the reaction, but either way, she pockets it as a victory. She lunges at the same time that Tigress kicks off and goes flying towards her. 

Tigress meets her head-on with just as much force. It doesn’t take long for Carmen to remember that this is someone who knows her fighting style better than anyone she’s wrestled with in the ring. They push each other back and Carmen doesn’t hesitate to rush forward again, hoping to get Tigress vulnerable by attacking from behind. 

Carmen ducks out of reach when the operative grabs for her—but she’s a beat too late, and Tigress’ arms come hooking under her shoulders, locking her in place. They aren’t falling into that old push-pull rhythm the way she expected them to, back when they used to fight over precious artifacts. Everything Carmen does is off-kilter and terror climbs higher into her throat, she should have just ran, just done what she’s best at doing, she _should have_ — 

Desperately Carmen kicks into her shins and finally frees herself, scrambling to put distance between them. Tigress swings for the head, advancing relentlessly, and Carmen knows she’s backing herself into a corner as she shields herself with her arms. 

It all happens too quickly for her to track. A strike just below the chest coming entirely out of left field, a hand curling around her wrist and another forcing her head forward, sharpness digging into her hips, the room flipped on its axis as her body is flung through the air. 

Her back slams against the fences, rattling the entire steel cage before she hits the ground. But even that isn’t enough to reel her back in, and Carmen is only distantly aware of the ugly noise ripped from her throat. And she doesn’t know what’s happening to her, or why. She’s been hit and knocked down dozens of times before, but she can’t _see_ anything now, and the ground doesn’t feel so solid beneath her anymore, and it’s hard to remember where she is when her head feels full of cement. 

There’s a weight, a body, pinning her down. 

She’s in a red coat and it’s suffocating her. Smoke clouds black and green around her vision. It’s all she sees—VILE, victory, and finally peace—as a supercharged blast sends her old best friend flying across the room. She points the same weapon at a man she loves. 

A string of discordant voices. _Don’t you remember me?_ —someone’s reaching out to her in the dark— _Please come back_ —a voice she knows but cannot pinpoint— _I did not come here for the gem_ —a hand she’s supposed to grab, perfectly out of reach— 

In the rain, Casablanca smells like earth, ash, and blood. 

Someone is yelling at her. It takes her a while to make sense of the words— _Tigress_ ’ words, harsh and grating. 

_Get up!_

She’s shaking Carmen’s shoulders, fingers digging into the meat of them. She could do anything to her right now but she’s just _shaking_ her. Nothing makes sense. 

_Get up!_

Carmen gasps as the room comes crashing back around her. Bright lights and warm sweat and this woman above her. 

“Get up, Sandiego, fuck—don’t you dare fade on me now. Get _up_!” 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](https://rememberhow.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/sixtylightyears)
> 
> back on my (most likely platonic??) carmen & tigress bs, and no i have not learned my lesson from time and rhythm (hi if you're here from that i sWEAR i actually want to get back to it one day), so here i am starting another overly-plotty... thing. and holy FUCK i had to bully this chapter into submission :_)
> 
> the real ship here is the one b/w me and my em dashes—i just can't let them go. (i'm so sorry.)


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